[TAHITI] Histoire des révolutions de Taïti,

Inquire · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Limited edition

avec le Tableau du Gouvernement, des Moeurs, des Arts, de la Religion des Habitans de cette île, par Messire Poutavery, Grand-Earée de Taïti; ouvrage traduit du Taïtien en Français par Mademoiselle B.D.B.D.B. Paris : chez Lamy, Libraire, Quai des Augustins, 1782. Two parts in one volume, duodecimo (150 x 90 mm), contemporary full calf, boards triple-ruled in gilt (lightly marked), spine in compartments with ornate gilt decoration and contrasting morocco title label lettered in gilt; original marbled endpapers, marbled edges; pp. xvi, 123, [1 blank], [4 Approbation and Privilege du Roi ]; [4], 210, [1 Table des Chapitres ], [1 blank]; each part with its own half title and title, the respective texts each with an engraved headpiece; first title with a light thumb mark, some very minor worming at lower margins, otherwise clean and crisp throughout; binding firm; a very good example. Scarce first edition of a Rousseauian utopian fantasy set in Tahiti, whose pseudo-author is none other than the historical figure Aotourou Poutavery, the Tahitian who travelled to Europe with Bougainville. On the title-page, the work s real author, Jean-Charles Poncelin de la Roche-Tilhac (1746-1828) clergyman, lawyer, journalist, bookseller, printer, translator and polemicist not only disguises his own name, but also as Mademoiselle B.D.B.D.B, the purported translator of the work his gender. Poncelin was the author of such works as Histoire de Paris (1780), Campagnes de Louis XV (1788), and, having

• Binding: Hardcover

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